


Let My Guard Down (Then You Pulled the Rug)

by closetbidisaster



Series: Malibu Nights [1]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Band Fic, F/F, no happy ending, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closetbidisaster/pseuds/closetbidisaster
Summary: I let my guard downThen you pulled the rugI guess I was getting kinda used to being someone you lovedOrBand AU with Kellex break-up
Relationships: Alex Morgan/Kelley O'Hara
Series: Malibu Nights [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816003
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	Let My Guard Down (Then You Pulled the Rug)

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's actually alive!
> 
> This was requested AGES ago. If it was you, please lmk so I can give a shout-out for it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!

Looking back, Kelley supposes she should have seen it coming. Alex’s reluctance to pack-up and move across the country, their dwindling communication, the lack of straight answers when asked how she felt about the move. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty they say. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly help the _lead up_ to the situation.

She had always dreamed of living in Malibu and making her dreams come true, with Alex right beside her to cheer her, and their friends, on. She never thought she’d hear those words leave the younger girl’s mouth.

_I can’t._

_It’s over._

_We’re done._

The first week after moving here had been a complete mess for her, and she had, unintentionally, made Tobin clean up after her. The second week had only been slightly less of a mess, with Ashlyn and Lindsey joining them and helping keep Kelley from _completely_ losing it.

They were behind schedule already. Tobin and Kelley had moved a week after originally intended, which pushed back Ashlyn and Lindsey’s move. They didn’t have a super tight schedule, but they took their craft seriously and wanted to hit the ground running.

But Alex had thrown a wrench in it, sending Kelley into a downward spiral.

* * *

_“Al, babe,” Kelley’s voice sounds from the bedroom. “Where’s the box with my sheet music?”_

_When she receives no answer, the shorter girl wanders out of the bedroom towards the living room in search of her girlfriend. Spotting the younger girl on the couch, Kelley makes her way over and leans over the back of the couch to kiss her cheek. She frowns, pulling back when she sees (and feels) Alex tense up._

_“Lex? What’s wrong?”_

_Alex just shakes her head and Kelley’s frown deepens. She walks around to the front of the couch and crouches down in front of Alex, trying to get the younger girl to look at her. It feels like there was a rock sinking in her stomach when Alex finally looks into her eyes._

_“I can’t do it.”_

_Kelley’s heart skips a beat._

_“Can’t do what?” She asks softly, already knowing the answer._

_“This. Us,” Alex shakes her head. “I can’t move to Malibu when my entire life is here. My family, my friends-”_

_“Tobin, Ash, and Lindsey are coming with us.”_

_Alex shakes her head._

_“No,” she takes a shaky breath. “They’re going with you.”_

_“Lex-”_

_“No, Kelley,” Alex’s voice sounds firmer. “I’m done. We’re done.”_

_Kelley blinks, standing and trying to process what her girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) had just said to her._

_“We’re done?” She echoes back._

_“I’m sorry,” Alex stands as well. “But, yes. It’s over.”_

_The younger girl walks out of the room as Kelley stands, frozen in place. She hears the front door open and close, and it’s like a spell is broken. She can breathe again, but it hurts. She can move again, but she’s afraid to._

_Her vision blurs and she reaches for her phone before realizing the person she would usually call in a moment like this is the root of it and hating every single thing about that._

* * *

Kelley wakes up completely sober for the first time since they got to California. Her bed is covered in crumpled up papers and so is her desk. She rolls out of bed and stumbles towards the kitchen, eyes still blurred with sleep. Not seeing where she is going (and not used to being sober), she doesn’t realize where she’s walking and her toes connect with the piano. Cursing, she glares at the piano as if it had moved and made her kick it on purpose.

Still, she’s unable to keep herself from sitting on the bench and poking at the keys. The melody that has been in her head for the last week rings in her ears and she starts to play. It’s late morning, meaning everyone else in the house should already be up, so she doesn’t worry about waking anyone. She doesn’t have any lyrics written yet, but she decides she can deal with that later. She plays the melody over and over until her eyes start to sting with tears and her playing eventually tapers off. As she hits the final key and lets the sound echo, a voice startles her.

“That’s beautiful, Kel.”

She turns and chews at her bottom lip, avoiding looking directly at Lindsey who is currently leaning against the wall.

“How long have you been standing there?”

Lindsey shrugs.

“Long enough,” she pushes off the wall and comes to sit next to Kelley on the bench. “Got any lyrics yet?”

Kelley shakes her head, toying with the keys again.

“That’s more of Tobin’s and your thing,” she mumbles.

“It can be whoever’s thing. We’re artists; we express our feelings through our work. It doesn’t matter whose name is under ‘songwriter’ or not.”

Kelley doesn’t respond, thinking about Lindsey’s words. Realistically, she knew the younger girl was right; all of them were capable of writing the songs, and Kelley had been a part of making a few different ones really come together. But, at the end of the day, she tended to leave the songwriting to Tobin and Lindsey. Their lyrics, at least to her, always felt the most authentic, the most real. They both wore their hearts on their sleeves, something that gave them the ability to write _real things_ and Kelley admired that about her friends.

Lindsey standing from the bench pulls Kelley out of her thoughts. She walks towards the kitchen and Kelley watches her go for a second before turning back to the piano and beginning the melody again. As she continues to play it, the words start to come to her.

_Now the day bleeds_

_Into nightfall_

_And you’re not here_

_To get me through it all_

_I let my guard down_

_Then you pulled the rug_

_I was kinda used to being someone you loved_

She stops playing and scrambles for her phone to write the lyrics down. She finds it, still buried beneath sheet music from a couple of days ago. She just hopes it’s still charged. When she finds it is, she quickly opens the voice memo app and plays through the melody again and sings the words that had just come to her. As she finishes, she can’t help but think of how bad things were when she first got out here.

* * *

_Kelley wakes up not really knowing how she’s feeling. On one hand, she felt fine, at least physically. On the other, when she finally got out of bed, she could tell she was definitely still drunk. She manages to stumble to the kitchen and begins rummaging for more booze. She’s so focused on finding it that she doesn’t hear Tobin coming in._

_“What are you doing?”_

_Kelley startles and nearly falls over, just managing to steady herself before she ends up on the ground. When she looks up, she finds Tobin standing and watching her, arms crossed across her chest and an unimpressed look on her face._

_“Uh,” Kelley tries to think of a good reason for looking in the cabinets, but her still-drunk brain was buffering._

_“I got rid of all the liquor last night after you passed out against the mini-fridge in the studio.”_

_“What?” Kelley is furious. “Why the hell would you do that?”_

_“Because you have a problem, Kelley. I get it; you’re hurting and you miss Alex. But this was never healthy, and now,” Tobin gestures toward her and shakes her head, “it’s a real problem.”_

_“I’m fine.”_

_Tobin scoffs, resulting in Kelley glaring heavily at her. Tobin holds her gaze until Kelley eventually looks away, kicking lightly at the ground._

_“I miss her.”_

_“I know you do. I get it.”_

_Kelley’s eyes flash with anger and she clenches her fists._

_“No, you don’t get it. We’ve been here for less than a month and you already found a Cali girl to sweep off her feet.”_

_Tobin takes a deep breath, trying to keep from retaliating because she knows Kelley is hurting. Her heart hurts for her friend, but she can no longer sit back and watch her life completely unravel because of a girl, even if it was Alex._

_“I do get it,” she tries to remind Kelley. “But use this time to heal properly. Scream, go for a run, dye your hair, write music. But, most importantly, stop drinking your problems away. It’s not healthy; you’re literally killing yourself.”_

_Kelley doesn’t respond, but her shoulders sag and her head hangs as she walks around Tobin and goes back to her bedroom. Tobin watches her go, heart feeling heavy and wishing she could do something to make the situation better for her friend._

_Kelley walks into her room and collapses on her bed, wishing there was a certain blue-eyed girl lying next to her._

* * *

Kelley barely even realizes she’s crying until her voice cracks. She takes a shaky breath and wipes at her eyes hurriedly. She ends the voice memo and locks her phone, not wanting to listen to it quite yet. Instead, she makes her way back to her bedroom and collapses on the bed. She stares at the ceiling and watches the fan rotate slowly, cursing Alex for making her this much of a mess.

And maybe it wasn’t entirely Alex’s fault. Kelley’s communication faltering was her own fault; she had let herself get so wrapped up in her music and their move that she had stopped checking on her girlfriend. Dates had slipped her mind, calls were missed, and more than one night was spent sleeping at Tobin’s because she didn’t want to face an angry Alex until she had to. But she had still loved Alex.

Her mind drifts to the box she had left at their old apartment. Alex had been gone when Kelley had woken up the morning of the move. Her stuff was still there, and Kelley knew she would be coming back, but she didn’t know if she could face her. So, she had gathered her things and packed her car, then returned to their bedroom and dug the box out of its hiding place, flipping it open and staring at the ring.

When Kelley left the apartment that day, she left the ring (and half of her heart) behind.

Kelley is pulled out of her spiral when she hears someone walking through the house humming the melody she had been playing. When the voice starts singing, Kelley can’t help but smile slightly knowing that Lindsey had been listening to her. When new lyrics start coming from the younger girl, Kelley sits up and wanders out to find Lindsey sitting at the table.

“Hey,” she greets softly.

“Oh, hey, Kel,” Lindsey turns around to face her. “I’ve already got your lyrics stuck in my mind. Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been toying with some other ones.”

“I don’t mind. Like I said, I’m not as much of a writer as you and Tobin.”

Lindsey smiles at her and gestures for her to sit down. When she does, the younger girl slides her notebook over towards the older one to show her some of the new lyrics she had been playing with.

“I can help you if you want, but it’s ultimately your story to tell, Kel.”

Kelley nods, still looking at the new lyrics and already mentally rewriting a few of them. She grabs the notebook and stands, making a beeline for the piano while Lindsey follows. She sits down and begins playing, letting Lindsey sing what Kelley had already written before nodding to signal that she wanted to sing something new. Lindsey nods in return and lets Kelley take the lead once more.

_I’m going under and this time I fear there’s no one to turn to_

_This all or nothing way of loving got my sleeping without you_

_Now, I need somebody to know_

_Somebody to heal_

_Somebody to have_

_Just to know how it feels_

_It’s easy to say but it’s never the same_

_I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape_

Lindsey sings the original lyrics again and Kelley definitively decides those will be the chorus. She stops the song but continues to mess with the keys, trying to think of more lyrics as Lindsey studies the notebook and hums. After a few minutes, Lindsey looks at Kelley and sits next to her on the bench.

“Alright, what else are you wanting to say?”

Kelley shrugs, taking her fingers off the keys.

“I dunno. Everything about this is just driving me crazy. I had someone who got me, really got me, and I lost her. And I don’t know what to do. I was using alcohol to numb the pain, to not have the presence of mind to process it.”

Lindsey nods along; she remembers Kelley’s physical and mental state when she arrived. She had been worried - they all had. But now, seeing Kelley’s eyes clear instead of hazy, Kelley not smelling like booze, they all felt a little better. They all knew she was still hurting (it was pretty hard to miss), and they wanted to help her in whatever ways they could. For Lindsey, that came with the music.

“Okay, so how about something like this?” Lindsey starts playing the piano and begins singing.

_I’m going under and this time I fear there’s no one to save me_

_This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy_

Kelley nods along for a second.

“Oh, wait,” she stands and goes to her room to grab her phone. When she returns, she opens the voice memo app and they go again. After a few more run-throughs, Kelley is feeling pretty solid about the song coming together and quickly makes a note on her phone to keep writing with Lindsey after they finish this.

_I need somebody to heal_

_Somebody to know_

_Somebody to have_

_Somebody to hold_

Kelley sort of likes the verses sounding similar, especially for her first mostly-solo writing experience.

_It’s easy to say_

_But never the same_

_I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain_

“Alright, what are we thinking for the bridge?” Lindsey asks after they rearrange the lyrics and Kelley hums for a moment before playing through the song again.

_And I tend to close my eyes when it hurts sometimes_

_I fall into your arms_

_I’ll be safe in your sound ‘til I come back around_

The smile Lindsey gives her lets her know she’s sold on it. As soon as they finish up and get everything written down how they want it, Lindsey wanders off to find Tobin and Ashlyn. They all gather around the piano while Kelley sat on the bench and began playing. When she finished, she looked up at the others and found all of them smiling sadly at her.

“That was beautiful, Kel,” Tobin finally says.

“I think we got ourselves a hit,” Ashlyn grins.

Kelley coughs a little and looks away.

“I dunno if I wanna put it out there.”

The other three look at her, confused. That was sort of the point of what they were doing out here in Malibu in the first place. Writing and releasing music, living their dream. The label was expecting their first song here soon. If they didn’t get it done quickly enough, they would have their writing privileges restricted and that was the last thing any of them wanted.

“Why not?” Tobin finally asks.

“It’s personal.”

“All of our music is personal.”

“Tobin,” Lindsey glares slightly at her. “This is newer territory for her.”

“She’s written songs with us before,” Ashlyn points out.

“But this is her first primarily-solo venture with it,” Lindsey counters, crossing her arms. “If she wants to put it out, we’ll put it out. If not, we can figure something else out. We’ve got loads of notebooks full of songs and half-finished ones.”

Kelley’s been quiet this entire time, toying with the keys and thinking about the entire thing. She’s only half-listening to what the others are saying, too caught up in her own mind to really hear what they are saying.

“Let’s do it,” she suddenly blurts out, slightly startling the others.

“Wait, really?” Lindsey asks, surprised.

Kelley only thinks for about half a second, then nods.

“Let’s do it,” she repeats.

Ashlyn lets out a ‘whoop’ and Tobin grins, hi-fiving the short-haired blonde. Kelley lets herself smile softly as well. This was a good thing for them.

What could go wrong?

* * *

As soon as the record executives heard their demo, they fast-tracked the release. Before they could blink, the band was launched to international fame with their debut single. _Someone You Loved_ had broken records, was on the watchlist for multiple awards, and was being requested by fans on the radio before it was released in some countries.

They were in Los Angeles for a radio interview when Kelley’s phone started ringing. She’s laughing at some (admittedly lame) joke from Ashlyn when it starts. The smile on her face drops quickly when she sees the name flashing on her screen. Her head snaps up and she immediately makes eye contact with Tobin and nods her head towards the side, silently asking her to meet her off to the side.

“What’s up?” Tobin asks when they reach each other.

“Alex just called me.”

Tobin’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“What do you think she wanted?”

Kelley rolls her eyes slightly.

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to talk about the weather.”

“I’m ignoring your sarcasm because I know it’s one of your many defense mechanisms.”

Before Kelley can respond again, they’re being waved over to talk with the radio host. They make their way back to their seats and Kelley tries to push the guilt gnawing at her out of her. She wants to enjoy her time with her bandmates and promote their music.

“Alright, Los Angeles, we’ve got some good ones in the studio today. Their debut single _Someone You Loved_ climbed the charts quicker than you can say ‘record-breaking’. Tobin Heath, Ashlyn Harris, Lindsey Horan, and Kelley O’Hara, better known as TALK, are here with us in the studio today. Welcome ladies.”

“Thanks for having us,” Ashlyn responds.

“Alright, so, I think I know the answer, but I gotta ask,” he chuckles, “the band name? Where’s it from?”

They all laugh and Kelley leans forward to respond.

“We named it TALK because none of them can shut up,” she jokes. “The fact that the first initials of our names also work for it is just a bonus.”

The rest of the first part of the interview flies by and they fall into their regular routine of having fun and teasing each other, feeling like it’s just the four of them sitting around the living room. But then, naturally, the topic of the song came up.

“Alright, we gotta talk about the song. I see that two of you wrote it together?”

They all nod and Lindsey elaborates.

“Yeah, Kelley and I penned it, but, to be completely honest, Kelley did like ninety-five percent of the writing - at least.”

“Aw c’mon, Linds,” Tobin interjects. “You helped. I’d say it was a solid 90-10.”

“More like 98-2,” Kelley teases and the others all laugh.

“Fair enough,” the host laughs as well. “Well, what about what inspired it? It’s a beautiful song - had to mean something to you, I assume?”

Kelley shifts in her seat and throws a quick look at Tobin before clearing her throat and answering.

“Uh, yeah, we try to make our music personal. We want to tell a story and we hope that people can relate or know they’re not alone in feeling a certain type of way. So, yeah, I definitely wanted us to put out something that was authentic for our debut single.”

“And how did you decide what song it would be? It sounds like you guys had a lot of songs to choose from.”

Kelley looks at the others who all nod, giving her the go-ahead to answer again.

“Well, we wrote it in one afternoon and it was actually Ash here,” she points to the blonde, “who said something like ‘oh it’s a hit’. And we decided, sitting at our piano that we wanted this to be our first single.”

Satisfied with her answer, the radio host moved on and Kelley let out a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart. The rest of the interview flies by and Kelley only speaks when necessary or to throw in some joke.

When they walk out of the radio station an hour later, her phone starts ringing and she looks at it. Alex’s name flashes on the screen again and Kelley’s steps falter for a second. She debates picking it up but hears someone calling for her and shakes her head, pocketing her phone and following her friends to the cars.

She had nothing to explain - she was living her dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I have more plans for this universe, don't worry.
> 
> @closetbidisaster on Tumblr


End file.
